Not Everything Is a Character Defect. Sometimes We're Just Human.

I've been sober since January 23, 1988. That's a long time to spend around Alcoholics Anonymous. I've attended more meetings than I could ever count, listened to thousands of people share their experience, worked the Steps, sponsored people, been sponsored, and heard just about every interpretation of the AA program imaginable.

And after all these years, there's something that's been bothering me.

Why does everything we do have to be connected to our alcoholism?

Seriously. Why?

Spend enough time around AA, particularly in some of the recovery groups on social media, and you'd think every uncomfortable emotion, every stupid decision, every moment of frustration, and every argument with your spouse is evidence of some deep, dark character defect that needs immediate attention.

Get angry in traffic? Better look at that resentment.

Yell at your kids? Sounds like untreated alcoholism.

Have a bad attitude at work? Your disease is talking.

Miss a few meetings? You're heading toward a drink.

Don't call your sponsor? You're playing with fire.

For Christ's sake, sometimes we're just having a bad day.

I'm an Alcoholic, Not an Alien

Let me make something clear before somebody decides I'm attacking AA.

I'm not.

Alcoholics Anonymous helped save my life. I was 21 years old when I got sober. I was a mess, and I needed help. I found that help in AA, and I will always be grateful for it.

I believe in the Twelve Steps. I believe in taking personal inventory. I believe in making amends, looking honestly at our motives, and recognizing when our behavior is hurting ourselves or other people.

I believe we alcoholics have a responsibility to pay attention to what's going on between our ears.

God knows, left to our own devices, some of us could fuck up a wet dream.

But somewhere along the line, I think some people started confusing being an alcoholic with being fundamentally defective as a human being.

And I don't buy that anymore.

We're alcoholics. We're also husbands, wives, parents, grandparents, employees, business owners, neighbors, and friends.

We're human beings.

And human beings do stupid shit sometimes.

Sometimes Traffic Is Just Traffic

Here's an example.

I'm driving down the road, minding my own business, and some idiot cuts me off.

On a good day, I might shake my head, smile, and let it go.

On another day, I might throw my hands up and yell, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Does that mean my spiritual condition is deteriorating?

Does it mean I'm full of unresolved resentment?

Does it mean I'm one bad decision away from sitting on a barstool?

No.

It means some idiot just cut me off and I'm pissed about it.

That's it.

There's no underlying desire to destroy my life. No hidden character defect demanding an emergency Fourth Step. No need to call three people and dissect what happened.

I'm frustrated.

Give me five minutes and I'll probably forget the whole thing.

Now, if I'm chasing the guy down the road, trying to run him off the highway, we might have something worth discussing.

There's a difference between experiencing a normal human emotion and allowing that emotion to control your behavior.

I think sometimes we forget that distinction.

We Can Take Personal Inventory Without Tearing Ourselves Apart

One of the greatest things AA taught me was how to look at myself.

Before getting sober, I wasn't particularly interested in examining my motives. If something went wrong, I could usually find someone else to blame.

The Steps taught me to take responsibility.

That's a valuable lesson, and it goes well beyond staying sober.

I believe that because of AA, many of us are more willing than the average person to question our behavior, admit when we're wrong, and try to make things right.

That's a good thing.

But there's a point where healthy self-examination can become something else entirely.

Not every uncomfortable feeling requires a deep dive into our childhood.

Not every argument reveals some terrible flaw in our character.

Not every selfish thought is evidence that we're spiritually sick.

Sometimes we're tired.

Sometimes we're stressed.

Sometimes we're overwhelmed.

Sometimes we're trying to raise children, pay bills, manage relationships, keep a job, and deal with all the other nonsense that comes with being alive.

And sometimes we handle those things poorly.

That doesn't make us terrible people. It makes us people.

If I yell at my kids because I've reached the end of my patience, I should absolutely look at what happened. I should recognize that I handled it poorly. I should apologize if I owe them an apology.

But I don't necessarily need to spend the next three days trying to figure out what deep-rooted alcoholic defect made me lose my temper.

Maybe I was exhausted.

Maybe I was frustrated.

Maybe I simply screwed up.

I can take responsibility for my behavior without turning it into an indictment of my entire character.

The Fear That Everything Leads to a Drink

This is another thing I've changed my mind about over the years.

When I first got sober, I heard all kinds of warnings.

If you stop going to meetings, you'll drink.

If you don't have a sponsor, you'll drink.

If you don't work the Steps correctly, you'll drink.

If you're dishonest, you'll drink.

If you get into a relationship too soon, you'll drink.

If you hold on to resentment, you'll drink.

If you don't put AA first in every aspect of your life, you'll drink.

And you know what?

I believed a lot of it.

At 21 years old, I was scared to death of drinking again. I had already seen what alcohol could do to my life, and I wasn't interested in finding out how much worse things could get.

So when people with more sobriety told me something was dangerous, I listened.

And in many cases, that was probably a good thing.

I needed structure. I needed guidance. I needed people who understood alcoholism to help me develop a different way of living.

But after 38 years, I've come to believe there's an important difference between telling someone that certain behaviors can put their recovery at risk and telling them that every mistake will inevitably lead to drinking.

Those are not the same thing.

Meetings are important. Sponsorship can be incredibly valuable. Honesty matters. The Steps have helped countless people build lives they never thought possible.

But missing a meeting doesn't automatically mean you're going to drink.

Having an argument doesn't automatically mean you're going to drink.

Having a bad attitude doesn't automatically mean you're going to drink.

If someone is struggling, withdrawing from everyone, becoming increasingly dishonest, or starting to romanticize drinking, those are things worth paying attention to.

Absolutely.

But turning every imperfection into a relapse warning doesn't necessarily help people recover.

Sometimes it just teaches them to be afraid of themselves.

And I don't believe that's what recovery is supposed to be about.

Your Sponsor Is Not Your Therapist

Here's another opinion that might upset a few people.

Your sponsor is not your therapist.

And your sponsor shouldn't pretend to be.

I believe a sponsor's responsibility is to share their experience with alcoholism, help another alcoholic understand and work the Twelve Steps, and offer the kind of support that comes from having walked a similar path.

That's an incredibly valuable relationship.

I've benefited from sponsorship, and I believe in it.

But being sober for 10, 20, or 40 years doesn't automatically qualify someone to diagnose another person's mental health, interpret their childhood trauma, or tell them what psychological problems they supposedly have.

Some sponsors seem to think their job is to uncover the hidden character defect behind every decision a person makes.

Sometimes they seem more interested in diagnosing someone's personality than helping them stay sober.

A sponsor can help guide you through the Twelve Steps, but they shouldn't become the final authority on every decision you make in life.

There's a difference between offering experience and expecting obedience.

We're not all trained mental health professionals.

AA meetings are not group therapy sessions, and sponsors are not substitutes for qualified therapists.

There's nothing wrong with seeking professional help. In fact, I think it's important to recognize when something is beyond the experience or ability of a sponsor to address.

Alcoholism is complicated enough without pretending we have all the answers to every psychological issue someone might experience.

Sometimes the most helpful thing a sponsor can say is, "I don't know. That's probably something you should talk to a professional about."

There's no shame in that.

We Are Not Special Because We're Alcoholics

This might be the part that bothers me most.

Sometimes I think we give alcoholism entirely too much credit.

We act as though every negative quality we possess is somehow unique to being an alcoholic.

Selfishness?

Alcoholism.

Dishonesty?

Alcoholism.

Impatience?

Alcoholism.

Anger?

Alcoholism.

Procrastination?

Alcoholism.

But spend a little time around people who aren't alcoholics and you'll discover something remarkable.

They do all that shit too.

People lie.

People cheat.

People get angry.

People make selfish decisions.

People call in sick when they don't feel like going to work.

People say things they regret.

People lose their patience with their children.

People have days when they don't want to get out of bed and deal with the world.

And plenty of those people have never had a drinking problem in their lives.

These aren't exclusively alcoholic behaviors.

They're human behaviors.

Now, I absolutely believe that as someone with a history of alcoholism, I need to be mindful of my motives and behavior. I know what I'm capable of when I stop paying attention to my life.

But I don't believe my alcoholism makes every flaw in my personality somehow more sinister than the same flaw in someone who doesn't drink.

Being an alcoholic doesn't make me special.

It doesn't give me a free pass to blame every stupid thing I do on my disease.

And it certainly doesn't mean I have to spend the rest of my life believing there's something fundamentally wrong with me.

Sometimes the Program Makes Us Harder on Ourselves

Here's where I think things get interesting.

I believe AA has made me a better person.

Not a perfect person. Not even close.

But a better person.

Because of the program, I've learned to look at my actions, question my motives, make amends, and recognize when I'm heading in the wrong direction.

I think those are wonderful things.

Imagine if more people took a little time each day to ask themselves whether they had treated others fairly, whether they had been honest, and whether they owed someone an apology.

The world might be a little less screwed up.

But I also believe that people in recovery can become unnecessarily hard on themselves.

We can take a perfectly normal human reaction and turn it into proof that we're somehow failing spiritually.

We can spend so much time looking for what's wrong that we forget to recognize what's right.

And social media seems to amplify this.

Someone posts about having a disagreement with their spouse, and suddenly there are people telling them to call their sponsor, work a Fourth Step, examine their resentments, and get to a meeting before things get worse.

Maybe that's helpful sometimes.

But maybe the person just had an argument with their spouse.

Maybe they need to apologize, have a conversation, and move on with their day.

Not everything is a five-alarm fire.

Not everything needs to be torn apart and analyzed to death.

And not every uncomfortable moment is a threat to our sobriety.

I've Changed My Mind, and That's Okay

I'm not going to pretend I've always thought this way.

I haven't.

There was a time when I believed many of those warnings without question.

I believed that if you weren't doing everything the way the program was being taught to you, you were putting your sobriety in danger.

I believed that character defects were lurking behind almost everything we did.

I believed that the answer to just about every problem was another meeting, another inventory, or another conversation with your sponsor.

And some of those things helped me tremendously.

But I've lived a lot of life since I was 21.

I've raised children. I've worked jobs. I've had relationships, disappointments, successes, failures, fears, frustrations, and more ordinary days than I could possibly count.

I've made mistakes while sober.

Plenty of them.

And I've learned that not every mistake has something to do with alcoholism.

Sometimes I was just wrong.

Sometimes I was selfish.

Sometimes I was tired, distracted, or overwhelmed.

Sometimes I acted like an asshole.

And sometimes I was simply doing the best I could with what I had at that particular moment.

None of that changes the fact that I'm an alcoholic.

It also doesn't mean I have to view every experience through that single lens.

I'm allowed to grow.

I'm allowed to question things I once believed.

I'm allowed to disagree with someone who has more sobriety than I do.

And I'm allowed to have an opinion about the program that helped save my life.

Being grateful for AA doesn't mean I have to agree with every interpretation of it.

Maybe We Should Just Try to Be Better Humans

Here's what I believe today.

I'm an alcoholic.

I always will be.

I know what alcohol did to my life, and I have absolutely no interest in returning to it.

I still believe in the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. I still believe in taking personal inventory, being honest with myself, and making amends when I've hurt someone.

I believe those practices have made me a better husband, father, grandfather, friend, and human being.

But I no longer believe that every negative emotion, bad decision, or character flaw is some kind of alcoholic emergency.

Sometimes I'm angry because something made me angry.

Sometimes I'm impatient because I'm tired.

Sometimes I say something stupid because, well, sometimes I say stupid things.

I don't need to blame my alcoholism for everything.

I need to take responsibility for my actions and try to do better the next time.

That's it.

After 38 years of sobriety, I don't want to spend the rest of my life searching for everything that's wrong with me.

I want to enjoy the life I've been given.

I want to love my family, appreciate my grandchildren, laugh at ridiculous things, occasionally get pissed off in traffic, admit when I'm wrong, and keep learning how to be a better person.

I want to remember that recovery gave me the opportunity to live my life, not spend every waking moment analyzing it.

And maybe that's something we should talk about a little more often.

Because at the end of the day, we're not just alcoholics trying not to drink.

We're human beings trying to live.

Sometimes we get it right.

Sometimes we screw it up.

And sometimes, believe it or not, it's got absolutely nothing to do with alcohol.

That's my opinion.

You're welcome to disagree.